The Strategy That Pays Both Bulls and Bears

Investors can use options that will pay them to wait for the market to move higher or lower.

One of the few sure things in investing is that earnings season happens four times a year. Now that second-quarter reporting is in full swing, investors are inundated with upgrades, downgrades, whisper numbers and guidance. For a few weeks a year investors and the media may actually be more focused on company watch than Federal Reserve watch.

This earnings season comes on the heels of the "taper tantrum," the global equity and fixed-income selloff that followed Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's hint he might put the...